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Record
sale price for rare cello
Lloyd Webber recorded
"The Look of Love" on the
Guadagnini cello
A rare 18th-Century cello, by Italian cello maker
Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, has sold for a record
price of £341,250 at Christie's in London. Dutch
cellist Pieter Wispelwey bought the instrument at
Christie's Musical Instruments sale.
Guadagnini used new technology to produce a smaller
than average cello.
Made in the northern Italian city of Parma in 1760,
it is one of only five Guadagnini cellos which have
come to auction in the last 20 years. Giovanni Battista
Guadagnini became an acclaimed cello-maker in the
18th Century, quickly surpassing the lesser creations
of his father Lorenzo.
In the spring of 1758, Guadagnini moved from Milan
to the duchy of Parma where he is believed to have
crafted this cello. It was offered to Christie's
for auction from the collection of a musician whose
family acquired the cello in the 1940s.
Pieter Wispelwey
The auction price establishes a new world record
for a Guadagnini cello.
Christie's holds the world auction record for any
musical instrument
for the sale of the Kreutzer
violin by Antonio Stradivari, which sold for £947,500
in April 1998
in London.
Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2004/11/03
© BBC MMIV |
